Overstock.com helps moves iPod photo inventory

True to previous mumblings, Overstock.com yesterday sold through a supply of Apple's previous generation 60GB iPod photo players. Interestingly, the online discounter listed the players for $399 -- the same cost of a new 60GB iPod, which was re-branded dropped 'photo' moniker. Today Overstock.com appears to have sold out of the iPods. It was previously rumored that Apple had contacted Overstock to help move excess iPod inventory. During Apple's previous fiscal quarter, inventory grew 18% sequentially to $193 million.

Isn't overstock supposed to be, yaknow, cheap? That's the whole point of buying stuff that's "overstock" - someone bought too much and wants to dump the rest for a killer deal for buyers. Nice move, Overstock ... doesn't create a good first impression of your business. Maybe I won't look at you in the future, as I'd thought of doing.

Isn't overstock supposed to be, yaknow, cheap? That's the whole point of buying stuff that's "overstock" - someone bought too much and wants to dump the rest for a killer deal for buyers. Nice move, Overstock ... doesn't create a good first impression of your business. Maybe I won't look at you in the future, as I'd thought of doing.

No, overstock isn't supposed to be cheap. Overstock.com is a web-site to sell stuff other people are trying to get rid of. But then its up to them and the overstockee to figure out what to charge to get the most from their overstock (hey, if you had 1000 extra iPods, would you want to sell them for $200 each, and lose $200 on each one???).

The key thing here to notice is that they sold out, within days, their entire stock. Which means they weren't over-selling these things (or there are enough idiots out there to buy them at super-high prices). So Apple got rid of their stock without having to take a bath on the whole thing. Back to my example, wouldn't you have preferred to sell your 1000 iPods for $399 instead of $199 each???).

You want a deal, go to eBay.

And if this doesn't create a good FIRST impression, my instinct is you wouldn't buy from them at all anyway, since you apparently never heard of them before (its not like this was their coming out party).

Actually, I'd heard of fthem before, but never looked at their site before -- I've heard of Buick too and I've never bothered to look into their cars. Just because you've heard of a company doesn't mean you've actually looked into them at all, so you have no impression of them one way or another beyond 'oh yeah, I've heard that name before'.

But yes, I do have a reasonable expectation that a place that sells "overstock" will be a place to get a bargain, considering that there are several local places that sell that sort of thing that ARE good deals. A site that claims to sell such things that is not a better deal than the local shop that sells thae goods in the first place? Is not going to make a good impression given that past experience with such stores is that they are a place to go for bargains.

As for ebay, it's no deal either. I've gone there several times to look into various items and the prices that come up are NOT deals, especially considering you're buying something used that no longer has a warranty since the warranties on most things aren't transferable.

This is off topic, however, since this is a discussion about Overstock.com I thought I would give my observation about their ads on TV. Is Overstock.com trying to get you to do business with them because of qualty or are they trying to lure you with sex? In other words, why in the first commercial is the spokeswoman weaing a tennis skirt where upon during the commercial they show a shot of her thighs while she is sitting down (much like that famous Sharon Stone scene)? In the second commercial the spokeswoman has her hair up and during the commercial she lets her hair down and waves her hair all around. I do not see the point of that unless they are trying to be sexy.

The funny thing is that Overstock is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. So the 'sex' they're trying to sell with is a decidedly middle-America sex. (40ish woman in a red dress with deep red lipstick ...)

Anyway, I've spent thousands at Overstock. They do have good prices on things like overstock books (and usually beat Amazon on non-overstock books). The selection leaves a lot to be desired and their electronics selections are not usually big bargains (as you can tell from the iPods).